JERVIS

1735-1823

The renown of Nelson is part of the heritage of the world. His deeds,

although their full scope and real significance have been but little

understood, stand out conspicuous among a host of lesser achievements,

and are become to mankind the symbol of Great Britain's maritime power

in that tremendous era when it drove the French Revolution back upon

itself, stifling its excesses, and so insuring the survival of the

beneficent tendencies which for a time seemed well nigh lost in the

madness of the nation.

The appearance of a prodigy like Nelson, however, is not an isolated

event, independent of antecedents. It is the result of a happy meeting

of genius and opportunity. The hour has come, and the man. Other men

have labored, and the hero enters into their labors; not unjustly, for

thereto he also has been appointed by those special gifts which fit him

to reap as theirs fitted them to sow. In relation to Nelson and his

career, the illustrious officer whose most distinguishing

characteristics we have now to trace stood pre-eminent among many

forerunners. It was he, above all others, who made the preparation

indispensable to the approaching triumphal progress of the first of

British naval heroes, so that his own work underlies that of his

successor, as foundation supports superstructure. There is not between

them the vital connection of root to branch, of plant to fruit. In the

matter of professional kinship Nelson has far more in common with Hood.

Between these there is an identity of kind, an orderly sequence of

development, an organic bond, such as knits together the series of a

progressive evolution. It is not so with Jervis. Closely conjoined as

the two men long were in a common service, and in mutual admiration and

sympathy, it would be an error to think of the elder as in any sense the

professional progenitor of the younger; yet he was, as it were, an

adoptive father, who from the first fostered, and to the last gloried

in, the genius which he confessed unparalleled. "It does not become me

to make comparisons," he wrote after Copenhagen; "all agree that there

is but one Nelson." And when the great admiral had been ten years in his

grave, he said of an officer's gallant conduct at the Battle of Algiers,

"He seems to have felt Lord Nelson's eye upon him;" as though no

stronger motive could be felt nor higher praise given.

John Jervis was born on the 20th of January, 1735, at Meaford, in

Staffordshire. He was intended for his father's profession, the law;

but, by his own account, a disinclination which was probably natural

became invincible through the advice of the family coachman. "Don't be a

lawyer, Master Jacky," said the old man; "all lawyers are rogues."

Sometime later, his father receiving the appointment of auditor to

Greenwich Hospital, the family removed to the neighborhood of London;

and there young Jervis, being thrown in contact with ships and seamen,

and particularly with a midshipman of his own age, became confirmed in

his wish to go to sea. Failing to get his parents' consent, he ran away

towards the close of the year 1747. From this escapade he was brought

back; but his father, seeing the uselessness of forcing the lad's

inclinations, finally acquiesced, though it seems likely, from his after

conduct, that it was long before he became thoroughly reconciled to the

disappointment.

In January, 1748, the future admiral and peer first went afloat in a

ship bound to the West Indies. The time was inauspicious for one making

the navy his profession. The war of the Austrian succession had just

been brought to an end by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the

monotonous discomfort of hard cruising, unrelieved by the excitements of

battle or the flush of prize-taking, was the sole prospect of one whose

narrow means debarred him from such pleasures as the station afforded

and youth naturally prompted him to seek. His pay was little over twenty

pounds a year, and his father had not felt able to give more than that

sum towards his original outfit. After being three years on board,

practising a rigid economy scarcely to be expected in one of his years,

the lad of sixteen drew a bill upon home for twenty pounds more. It came

back dishonored. The latent force of his character was at once aroused.

To discharge the debt, he disposed of his pay tickets at a heavy

discount; sold his bed, and for three years slept on the deck; left the

mess to which he belonged, living forward on the allowance of a seaman,

and making, mending, and washing his own clothes, to save expense. Doubt

has been expressed as to the reality of these early privations, on the

ground that his father's office at Greenwich, and the subsequent

promotions of the young officer, show the existence of a family

influence, which would have counteracted such extreme restriction in

money matters. The particulars, however, have been so transmitted as to

entitle them to acceptance, unless contradicted by something more

positive than circumstantial inference from other conditions, not

necessarily contradictory.

This sharp experience was singularly adapted to develop and exaggerate

his natural characteristics, self-reliance, self-control, stern

determination, and, it must be added, the exacting harshness which

demanded of others all that he had himself accepted. His experience of

suffering and deprivation served, not to enlarge his indulgence, but to

intensify his severity. Yet it may be remarked that Jervis was at all

periods in thorough touch with distinctively naval feeling, sympathizing

with and respecting its sensibilities, sharing its prejudices, as well

as comprehending its weaknesses. Herein he differed from Rodney, who in

the matter of community of sentiment stood habitually external to his

profession; in it, but in heart not of it; belonging consciously and

willingly to a social class which cherished other ideals of life and

action. His familiarity with the service quickened him to criticise more

keenly and accurately than a stranger, to recognize failings with

harsher condemnation; but there appears no disposition to identify

himself with it further than as an instrument of personal advancement

and distinction.

Upon Jervis's naval future, the results of his early ordeal were wholly

good. Unable to pursue pleasure ashore, he stuck to sea-going ships; and

the energies of a singularly resolute mind were devoted to mastering all

the details of his profession. After six years in the Caribbean, he

returned to England in the autumn of 1754. The troubles between France

and Great Britain which issued in the Seven Years War had already begun,

and Jervis, whose merit commanded immediate recognition from those under

whom he served, found family influence to insure his speedy promotion

and employment. Being made lieutenant early in 1755, he was with

Boscawen off the Gulf of St. Lawrence when that admiral, although peace

yet reigned, was ordered to seize the French fleet bearing

reinforcements to Quebec. At the same time, Braddock's unfortunate

expedition was miscarrying in the forests of Pittsburg. A year later, in

1756, Jervis went to the Mediterranean with Admiral Hawke, sent to

relieve Byng after the fiasco at Minorca which brought that unhappy

commander to trial and to death.

Before and during this Mediterranean cruise Jervis had been closely

associated with Sir Charles Saunders, one of the most distinguished

admirals of that generation, upon whom he made so favorable an

impression that he was chosen for first lieutenant of the flag-ship,

when Saunders, in 1758, was named to command the fleet to act against

Quebec. The gallant and romantic General Wolfe, whose death in the hour

of victory saddened the triumph of the conquerors, embarked in the same

ship; and the long passage favored the growth of a close personal

intimacy between the two young men, who had been at school together as

boys, although the soldier was several years older than the sailor. The

relations thus formed and the confidences exchanged are shown by a

touching incident recorded by Jervis's biographer. On the night before

the battle on the Heights of Abraham, Wolfe went on board the

_Porcupine_, a small sloop of war to whose command Jervis had meanwhile

been promoted, and asked to see him in private. He then said that he was

strongly impressed with the feeling that he should fall on the morrow,

and therefore wished to entrust to his friend the miniature of the lady,

Miss Lowther, to whom he was engaged, and to have from him the promise

that, if the foreboding proved true, he would in person deliver to her

both the portrait and Wolfe's own last messages. From the interview the

young general departed to achieve his enterprise, to which daring

action, brilliant success, and heroic death have given a lustre that

time itself has not been able to dim, whose laurels remain green to our

own day; while Jervis, to whose old age was reserved the glory that his

comrade reaped in youth, remained behind to discharge his last

request,--a painful duty which, upon returning to England, was

scrupulously fulfilled.

Although the operations against Quebec depended wholly upon the control

of the water by the navy, its influence, as often happens, was so

quietly exerted as to draw no attention from the general eye, dazzled by

the conspicuous splendor of Wolfe's conduct. To Jervis had been assigned

the distinguished honor of leading the fleet with his little ship, in

the advance up river against the fortifications of the place; and it is

interesting to note that in this duty he was joined with the afterwards

celebrated explorer, James Cook, who, as master of the fleet, had

special charge of the pilotage in those untried waters. Wolfe, Cook, and

Jervis form a striking trio of names, then unknown, yet closely

associated, afterwards to be widely though diversely renowned.

When the city fell, Commander Jervis was sent to England, probably with

despatches. There he was at once given a ship, and ordered to return

with her to North America. Upon her proving leaky, he put in to

Plymouth, where, as his mission was urgent, he was directed to take

charge of a sloop named the _Albany_, then lying at anchor near by, and

to proceed in her. To this moment has been attributed an incident which,

as regards time and place, has been more successfully impeached than the

story of his early privations, in that no mention of it is found in the

ship's log; and there are other discrepancies which need reconcilement.

Nevertheless it is, as told, so entirely characteristic, that the

present writer has no doubt it occurred, at some time, substantially as

given by his biographer, who was son to a secretary long in close

relations with him when admiral. It would be entirely in keeping with

all experience of testimony that the old man's recollections, or those

of his secretary, may have gone astray on minor circumstances, while

preserving accurately the fundamental and only really important facts,

which are perfectly consistent with, and illustrative of, the stern

decision afterwards shown in meeting and suppressing mutiny of the most

threatening description. The crew of the _Albany_, it is said, from some

motives of discontent refused to sail. Jervis had brought with him a few

seamen from his late command. These he ordered to cut the cables which

held the ship to her anchors, and to loose the foresail. Daunted more,

perhaps, by the bearing of the man than by the mere acts, the mutineers

submitted, and in twenty-four days, an extraordinarily short passage for

that time, the _Albany_ was at New York. Here Jervis was unfortunately

delayed, and thus, being prevented from rejoining Sir Charles Saunders,

lost the promotion which a British commander-in-chief could then give to

an officer in his own command who had merited his professional approval.

It was not until October, 1761, when he was twenty-six, that Jervis

obtained "post" rank,--the rank, that is, of full, or post, captain. By

the rule of the British navy, an officer up to that rank could be

advanced by selection; thenceforth he waited, through the long

succession of seniority, for his admiral's commission. This Jervis did

not receive until 1787, when he was fifty-two.

It was as a general officer, as an admiral commanding great fleets and

bearing responsibilities unusually grave through a most critical period

of his country's history, that Jervis made his high and deserved

reputation. For this reason, the intervening years, though pregnant with

the finished character and distinguished capacity which fitted him for

his onerous work, and though by no means devoid of incident, must be

hastily sketched. The Treaty of Paris, which in 1763 closed the Seven

Years War, was followed by twelve years of peace. Then came the American

Revolution, bringing in its train hostilities with France and Spain.

During the peace, Jervis for nearly four years commanded a frigate in

the Mediterranean. It is told that while his ship was at Genoa two

Turkish slaves escaped from a Genoese galley, and took refuge in a

British boat lying at the mole, wrapping its flag round their persons.

Genoese officers took them forcibly from the boat and restored them to

their chains. Jervis resented this, as being not only an insult to the

British flag, but also an enforcement of slavery against men under its

protection; and so peremptory was his tone that an apology was made, the

two captives were given up on the frigate's quarter-deck, and the

offending officers punished. The captain's action, however, was not

sustained by his own government. It is curious to note that,

notwithstanding his course in this case, and although he was not merely

nominally, but strenuously, a Whig, or Liberal, in political faith,

connected by party ties with Fox and his coterie of friends, Jervis was

always opposed to the abolition of the slave trade and to the education

of the lower orders. Liberty was to him an inherited worship, associated

with certain stock beliefs and phrases, but subordination was the true

idol of his soul.

In 1775 Captain Jervis commissioned the _Foudroyant_, of eighty-four

guns, a ship captured in 1758 from the French, and thereafter thought to

be the finest vessel in the British fleet. To this, her natural

superiority, Jervis added a degree of order, discipline, and drill which

made her the pride and admiration of the navy. He was forty when his

pennant first flew from her masthead, and he held the command for eight

years, a period covering the full prime of his own maturity, as well as

the entire course of the American Revolution. It was also a period

marked for him, professionally, less by distinguished service than by

that perfection of military organization, that combination of dignified

yet not empty pomp with thorough and constant readiness, which was so

eminently characteristic of all the phases of Jervis's career, and

which, when the rare moments came, was promptly transformed into

unhesitating, decisive, and efficient action. The _Foudroyant_, in her

state and discipline, was the type in miniature of Jervis's

Mediterranean fleet, declared by Nelson to be the finest body of ships

he had ever known; nay, she was the precursor of that regenerate British

navy in which Nelson found the instruments of his triumphs. Sixty years

later, old officers recalled the feelings of mingled curiosity and awe

with which, when sent to her on duty from their own ships, they climbed

on board the _Foudroyant_, and from the larboard side of her

quarter-deck gazed upon the stern captain, whose qualities were

embodied in his vessel and constituted her chief excellences.

During Jervis's command, the _Foudroyant_ was continuously attached to

the Channel Fleet, whose duty, as the name implies, was to protect the

English Channel and its approaches; a function which often carried the

ships far into the Bay of Biscay. Thus he took a prominent part in

Keppel's battle off Ushant in 1778, in the movements occasioned by the

entrance into the Channel of an overpowering Franco-Spanish fleet in

1779 and 1781, and in the brilliant relief of Gibraltar by Admiral Howe

towards the end of 1782. His most distinguished service, however, was

taking, single-handed, the French seventy-four _Pégase_, in the spring

of the latter year. The capture was effected after an action of fifty

minutes, preceded by a chase of twelve hours, running before a half-gale

of wind. The _Foudroyant_ was unquestionably superior in battery to her

enemy, who, moreover, had but recently been commissioned; but, as has

justly been remarked of some of the victories of our own ships over

those of the British in the War of 1812, although there was disparity of

forces, the precision and rapidity with which the work was done bore

incontrovertible testimony to the skill and training of the captain and

crew. Single combats, such as this, were rare between vessels of the

size of the _Foudroyant_ and _Pégase_, built to sail and fight in

fleets. That one occurred here was due to the fact that the speed of

the two opponents left the British squadron far astern. The exploit

obtained for Jervis a baronetcy and the ribbon of the Order of the Bath.

Sir John Jervis did not serve afloat during the ten years of peace

following 1783, although, from his high repute, he was one of those

summoned upon each of the alarms of war that from time to time arose.

Throughout this period he sat in Parliament, voting steadily with his

party, the Whigs, and supporting Fox in his opposition to measures which

seemed to tend towards hostilities with France. When war came, however,

he left his seat, ready to aid his country with his sword in the quarrel

from which he had sought to keep her.

Having in the mean time risen from the rank of captain to that of

rear-and of vice-admiral, Jervis's first service, in 1794, was in the

Caribbean Sea, as commander of the naval part of a joint expedition of

army and navy to subdue the French West India islands. The operation,

although most important and full of exciting and picturesque incident,

bears but a small share in his career, and therefore may not be dwelt

upon in so short a sketch as the present aims to be. Attended at first

by marked and general success, it ended with some severe reverses,

occasioned by the force given him being less than he demanded, and than

the extent of the work to be done required. A quaintly characteristic

story is told of the admiral's treatment of a lieutenant who at this

period sought employment on board his ship. Knowing that he stood high

in the old seaman's favor, the applicant confidently expected his

appointment, but, upon opening the "letter on service," was stunned to

read:--

SIR,--You, having thought fit to take to yourself a

wife, are to look for no further attentions from

Your humble servant,

J. JERVIS.

The supposed culprit, guiltless even in thought of this novel

misdemeanor, hastened on board, and explained that he abhorred such an

offence as much as could the admiral. It then appeared that the letter

had been sent to the wrong person. Jervis was himself married at this

time; but his well-regulated affections had run steadily in harness

until the mature age of forty-eight, and he saw no reason why other men

should depart from so sound a precedent. "When an officer marries," he

tersely said, "he is d----d for the service."

Returning to England in February, 1795, Jervis was in August nominated

to command the Mediterranean station, and in November sailed to take up

his new duties. At the end of the month, in San Fiorenzo Bay, an

anchorage in the north of Corsica, he joined the fleet, which continued

under his flag until June, 1799. He had now reached the highest rank in

his profession, though not the highest grade of that rank as it was

then subdivided; being a full Admiral of the Blue. The crowning period

of his career here began. Admirable and striking as had been his

previous services, dignified and weighty as were the responsibilities

borne by him in the later part of a life prolonged far beyond the span

of man, the four years of Jervis's Mediterranean command stand

conspicuous as the time when preparation flowered into achievement,

solid, durable, and brilliant. It may be interesting to Americans to

recall that his age was nearly the same as that of Farragut when the

latter assumed the charge in which, after long years of obscure

preparation, he also reaped his harvest of glory. It is likewise worthy

of note that this happy selection was made wholly independent of the

political bias, which till then had so often and unworthily controlled

naval appointments. Jervis belonged to the small remnant of Whigs who

still followed Fox and inveighed against the current war, as unnecessary

and impolitic. It was a pure service choice, as such creditable alike to

the Government and the officer.

Though distinguished success now awaited him, a period of patient

effort, endurance, and disappointment had first to be passed,

reproducing in miniature the longer years of faithful service preceding

his professional triumphs. Jervis came to the Mediterranean too late for

the best interests of England. The year 1795, just ending, was one in

which the energies of France, after the fierce rush of the Terror, had

flagged almost to collapse. Not only so, but in its course the republic,

discouraged by frequent failure, had decided to abandon the control of

the sea to its enemy, to keep its great fleets in port, and to confine

its efforts to the harassment of British commerce. To this change of

policy in France is chiefly to be ascribed the failure of naval

achievement with which Macaulay has reproached Pitt's earlier ministry.

Battles cannot be fought if the foe keeps behind his walls. Prior to

this decision, two fleet battles had been fought in the Mediterranean in

the spring and summer of 1795, in which the British had missed great

successes only through the sluggishness of their admiral. "To say how

much we wanted Lord Hood" (the last commander-in-chief), wrote Nelson,

"is to ask, 'Will you have all the French fleet or no battle?'" Could he

have foreseen all that Jervis was to be to the Mediterranean, his

distress must have been doubled to know that the fortunes of the nation

thus fell between two stools.

His predecessor's slackness in pushing military opportunities, due

partly to ill health, was mainly constitutional, and therefore could not

but show itself by tangible evidences in the more purely administrative

and disciplinary work. Jervis found himself at once under the necessity

of bringing his fleet--in equipment, in discipline, and in

drill--sharply up to that level of efficiency which is essential to the

full development of power when occasion offers. This his perfect

achievement, of organization and administration, in its many intricate

details, needs at least to be clearly noted, even though space do not

admit many particulars; because his capacity as administrator at the

head of the Admiralty a few years later has been seriously impugned, by

a criticism both partial and excessive, if not wholly unjust. Nelson, a

witness of his Mediterranean service from beginning to end, lauded to

the utmost the excellence there reached, and attributed most of the

short-coming noted in the later office to the yielding of a man then

advanced in years, to advisers, in trusting whom fully he might well

believe himself warranted by experience.

Although, when taking command, his fleet reached the seemingly large

proportions of twenty-five ships-of-the-line and some fifty cruisers,

heavy allowance must be made for the variety of services extending over

the two thousand miles of the Mediterranean, from east to west. Seven

of-the-line had to be kept before Cadiz, though still a neutral port, to

check a French division within. One of the same class was on the Riviera

with Nelson; and other demands, with the necessities of occasional

absences for refit, prevented the admiral from ever assembling before

Toulon, his great strategic care, much more than a round dozen to watch

equal French numbers there. The protection of Corsica, then in British

hands; the convoy of commerce, dispersed throughout the station; the

assurance of communications to the fortress and Straits of Gibraltar, by

which all transit to and from the Mediterranean passes; diplomatic

exigencies with the various littoral states of the inland sea; these

divergent calls, with the coincident necessity of maintaining every ship

in fit condition for action, show the extent of the administrative work

and of the attendant correspondence. The evidence of many eye-witnesses

attests the successful results.

Similar attention, broad yet minute, was demanded for the more onerous

and invidious task of enforcing relaxed discipline and drill. Concerning

these, the most pregnant testimony, alike to the stringency and the

persistence of his measures, may be found in the imbittered expressions

of enemies. Five years later, when the rumor spread that he was to have

the Channel Fleet, the toast was drunk at the table of the man then in

command, "May the discipline of the Mediterranean never be introduced

into the Channel." "May his next glass of wine choke the wretch," is a

speech attributed to a captain's wife, wrathful that her husband was

kept from her side by the admiral's regulations. For Jervis's discipline

began at the top, with the division and ship commanders. One of the

senior admirals under him persisting in a remonstrance, beyond the point

which he considered consistent with discipline, was sent home. "The very

disorderly state of His Majesty's ship under your command," he writes to

a captain, "obliges me to require that neither yourself nor any of your

officers are to go on shore on what is called pleasure." "The

commander-in-chief finds himself under the painful necessity of publicly

reprimanding Captains ---- and ---- for neglect of duty, in not

maintaining the stations assigned to their ships during the last night."

In a letter to a lieutenant he says, "If you do not immediately make a

suitable apology to Commissioner Inglefield for the abominable neglect

and disrespect you have treated him with, I will represent your

behaviour to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and recommend

your name to be struck off the list of lieutenants." Captains of vessels

were not only subject to strict regulation as to their personal

proceedings, compelled to sleep on board, for instance, even in home

ports; but duties customarily left to subordinates, with results to

discipline that might not now obtain but which were in those days

deplorable, were also assigned to them.

"The commander-in-chief has too exalted an opinion of the respective

captains of the squadron to doubt their being upon deck when the signal

is made to tack or wear _in the night_, and he requires all lieutenants

then to be at their stations, except those who had the watch

immediately preceding." Nor did he leave this delicately worded, but

pointed, admonition, issued in the Mediterranean, to take care of

itself. In after years, when he was nigh seventy, his secretary tells

that on a cold and rainy November night off Brest, the signal to tack

being made, he hurried to the cabin to persuade the old man not to go on

deck, as was his custom. He was not, however, in his cot, nor could he

for a long time be found; but at last a look into the stern gallery

discovered him, in flannel dressing-gown and cocked hat, watching the

movements of the fleet. To remonstrance he replied, "Hush, I want to see

how the evolution is performed on such a night, and to know whether

Jemmy Vashon (commanding the ship next astern) is on deck;" but soon

hearing the captain's well-known shrill voice, crying, "Are you all

ready forward?" he consented then to retire.

Post-captains and commanders were required to attend at points on shore

where the boats and crews of ships congregated on service; at landing

places and watering places,--scenes fruitful in demoralization,--to

maintain order and suppress disturbance. "The Masters and Commanders are

to take it in turn, according to rank, to attend the duty on shore at

the ragged staff [at Gibraltar], from gun-fire in the morning to sunset,

to keep order and prevent disputes, and to see that boats take their

regular turns. They are never to be absent from the spot except at

regular meal times." "When the squadron is at anchor in Torbay [in the

English Channel], a captain of a ship-of-the-line is to command at the

watering place at Brixham, taking to his assistance his commanding

officer of marines with a party of his men. He also may take with him a

lieutenant of the ship and as many midshipmen as he thinks fit; _but he

himself_ is not to quit his command until regularly relieved." A greater

stringency is observable at this later date, in the Channel Fleet, than

in the Mediterranean; for at the earlier period the spirit of mutiny had

not openly broken out, and he had besides on the distant station better

captains than those who had clung to the home fleet under its lax

discipline. "Old women in the guise of young men," he affirmed many of

them to be.

There was in fact an imminent necessity that naval rank should be made

to feel its responsibilities, and to exert its predominance; to be

restored to prestige, not by holding aloof in its privileges, but by

asserting itself in act. The preponderance of political and family

influence in determining promotion of officers, unbalanced by valid

tests of fitness such as later days imposed, had not only lowered the

competency of the official body as a whole, but impaired the respect

which personal merit alone can in the long run maintain. On the other

hand, the scarcity of seamen in proportion to the heavy demands of the

war, and the irregular methods of impressment and recruiting then

prevailing, swept into the service a vast number of men not merely

unfit, but of extremely bad character,--"miscreants," to use

Collingwood's word,--to be ruled only by fear of the law and of their

officers, supported by the better element among the crews. But these

better men also were becoming alienated by the harsh restrictions of the

times, and by the procrastination of superiors--Howe, the Sailor's

Friend, among others--to heed their just complaints. The stern Jervis,

whom none suspected of fatherly tenderness, if less indulgent to

culprits, was far more attentive to meet the reasonable demands of those

under him. While quelling insubordination mercilessly, he ever sought to

anticipate grievance; exhibiting thus the two sides of the same spirit

of careful, even-handed justice.

Jervis's work during the first eighteen months of his command was

therefore not only necessary, but most timely. By improving that period

of comparative internal quiet, he educated his officers and men to pass

steadfastly, though not unmoved, through the awful crisis of the

mutinies in 1797-98. Professional self-respect, a most powerful moral

force, was more than restored; it was intensified by the added dignity

and power manifest in the surroundings of daily life, as well as in the

military results obtained. Seamen, like others, deal more conservatively

with that of which they are proud because it reflects honor upon

themselves; and they obey more certainly men who share their labors and

lead them capably in danger, as did Jervis's Mediterranean captains.

With himself, severity was far from being the only instrument.

Thoroughly capable professionally, and thereby commandful of respect, he

appealed also to men's regard by intelligent and constant thought for

the wants and comfort of those under him; by evidence of strong service

feeling on his own part; by clear and clearly expressed recognition of

merit, wherever found; by avoidance of misunderstandings through

explanation volunteered when possible,--not apologetically, but as it

were casually, yet appealing to men's reason. Watchfulness and

sympathetic foresight were with him as constant as sternness, though

less in evidence.

Of this prevalence of kindly naval feeling amid the harshness which

seemed superficially the chief characteristic of his rule, many

instances could be cited. Passing by the frequent incidental praise of

distinguished captains, Nelson, Troubridge, and others, he thus

advocates the claims of one of the humble, hopeless class of

sailing-masters, out of the line of promotion. After an act of brilliant

merit in the West Indies, "Mr. White was ambitious to become a

lieutenant; but not having served six years in the navy, and being a

master, I could not then comply with his wishes. He is now Master of the

_Defence_, and his captain speaks in the highest terms of him; and it is

a tribute _due to the memory_ of Captain Faulknor,--whose certificate

of that matchless service is enclosed,--and _to the gallantry of his

officers and crew_, to state the claims of Mr. White to your Lordship,

who is the protector of us all." The present and the past, the merits of

the living, the memory of the glorious dead, the claims of the navy to

see well-doers rewarded, are all pressed into service to support a just

request, and with a manifest heartiness which in virtue of its reality

approaches eloquence. "I have given an order to Mr. Ellis to command as

a lieutenant, he being the son of a very old officer whom I knew many

years; and coming very strongly recommended from his last ship, I place

him under your Lordship's protection as _a child of the service_." When

a man thus bears others' deserts and the profession on his heart, he can

retain the affections of his subordinates even though he show all the

unbending severity of Jervis, and despite the numerous hangings, which,

for that matter, rarely fell except on the hopelessly bad. A most

significant feature of his rule as a disciplinarian was his peculiar

care of health, by instructed sanitary measures, by provision of

suitable diet, and by well-ordered hospital service. This was not merely

a prudential consideration for the efficiency of the fleet; he regarded

also the welfare of the sufferers. He made it a rule to inspect the

hospitals himself, and he directed a daily visit by a captain and by the

surgeons of the ships from which patients were sent, thus keeping the

sick in touch with those they knew, and who had in them a personal

interest. An odd provision, amusingly illustrative of the obverse side

of the admiral's character, was that the visiting captain should be

accompanied by a boatswain's mate, the functionary charged with

administering floggings, and, "if they find the patients do not conduct

themselves properly and orderly, they are to punish them agreeably to

the rules of the Navy." It was, however, on his care of health, in its

various exposures, that the admiral specially valued himself; it was, he

said, his proudest boast among the services to which he laid claim.

But while he labored thus for the welfare of the seamen, it was

naturally upon the professional tone of his officers that his chief

reliance must be placed; and the leaders among them he grappled to his

soul with hooks of steel, as they recognized the wisdom and force of his

measures, and the appreciation given to them and others. Whatever

beneficent influence might issue from him as a fountain-head must

through them be distributed, and by them reinforced and sustained. "The

discipline of the fleet," he said, "is in the ward-room;" and greatly

did he lament the loose insubordinate talk, the spirit of irresponsible

criticism that found voice at mess-tables, within the hearing of

servants, by whom it was disseminated throughout the body of the ship.

Not only he, but many, attributed to this hot-bed the fomenting of

discontent into organized mutiny. This could not be stopped by direct

measures, but only by imposing a feeling of fear, and nurturing that of

officer-like propriety, by stringent prescription of forms of respect

and rigid exaction of their observance. To stand uncovered before a

superior, instead of lightly touching the hat, to pay outward reverence

to the national flag, to salute the quarter-deck as the seat of

authority, were no vain show under him. "Discipline," he was fond of

quoting, "is summed up in the one word, 'Obedience;'" and these customs

were charged with the observance which is obedience in spirit. They

conduced to discipline as conventional good manners, by rendering the

due of each to each, knit together the social fabric and maintain the

regularity and efficiency of common life; removing friction, suppressing

jars, and ministering constantly to the smooth and even working of the

social machinery.

By measures such as these, extending to all ranks and every detail,

exemplifying, in spirit and in form, the extremes of cordial reward,

iron restraint, and weighty punishment, Jervis patiently fashioned the

fleet which was to be both a pattern for coming days, and the highly

tempered instrument to achieve his own victory of Cape St. Vincent and

the earlier triumphs of Nelson; as well as to sustain and to crush the

onset of mutiny which soon afterwards shook the Navy to its centre. For

purely military action of an aggressive character no opportunity was

afforded him. His coming to the Mediterranean coincided with that of

Napoleon Bonaparte to the Army of Italy. During 1795, wrote Nelson, if

the British fleet had done its duty, the French army could not have

moved along the Riviera of Genoa. It failed, and the Austrian general,

its ally, also failed to act with vigor. So the year had ended, for the

Austrians, with a disastrous defeat and a retreat behind the Apennines.

To the Riviera they never returned to receive the co-operation which

Jervis stood eager to give. At their first move to cross the mountains,

Bonaparte struck, and followed up his blows with such lightning-like

rapidity that in thirty days they were driven back over a hundred miles,

behind the Adige; their chief fortress, Mantua, was blockaded; all

northwest Italy with its seaboard, including Leghorn, was in the power

of France; and Naples also had submitted. Jervis, powerless to strike a

blow when no enemy was within reach, found his fleet without a friendly

port nearer than Gibraltar, while Corsica, where alone he could expect

anchorage and water, was seething with revolt against the British crown,

to which, by its own vote, it had been annexed but two years before.

Amid these adverse circumstances, the only large operation possible to

him was the close watching of the port of Toulon, conducted on the same

general plan that was afterwards more illustriously exhibited before

Brest, between 1800 and 1805, under conditions of surpassing difficulty.

All contemplated movements of the French fleet were thus dammed at the

source, for it must first fight the British, after which there was

little hope of being in a state to fulfil any further mission. For six

months, from April to October, Jervis held his fleet close up to the

port, the advanced body two miles from the entrance. The effort was

admirable as a pattern, and for disciplinary purposes. The ships, forced

to self-dependence, became organically self-reliant. Their routine life

of seamanship and military exercise perfected habit and efficiency, and

difficulties to others insuperable were as the light burdens which a

giant carries unwittingly.

Further than this, achievement could not then go. During the summer

Bonaparte held Mantua by the throat, and overthrew one after another the

Austrian forces approaching to its relief. Two French armies, under

Jourdan and Moreau, penetrated to the heart of Germany; while Spain,

lately the confederate of Great Britain, made an offensive and defensive

alliance with France, and sent a fleet of over twenty ships-of-the-line

into the Mediterranean. Staggered by these reverses, the British

ministry ordered Corsica evacuated and the Mediterranean abandoned.

Jervis was cruelly embarrassed. A trusted subordinate of high reputation

had been before Cadiz with seven ships-of-the-line, watching a French

division in that port. Summoned, in view of the threatening attitude of

Spain, to reinforce the main fleet in San Fiorenzo Bay, he lost his head

altogether, hurried past Gibraltar without getting supplies, and brought

his ships destitute to the admiral, already pressed to maintain the

vessels then with him. Although there were thirty-five hostile ships in

Toulon and the British had only twenty-two, counting this division,

there was nothing to do but to send it back to Gibraltar, under urgent

orders to return with all speed. With true military insight and a

correct appreciation of the forces opposed to him, Jervis saw the need

of fighting the combined enemies then and there.

Unfortunately, the division commander, Admiral Mann, on reaching

Gibraltar, became infected with the spirit of discouragement then

prevailing in the garrison, called a council of naval captains, and upon

their advice, which could in no wise lessen his own responsibility,

decided to return to England. This culpably unwarrantable act aptly

illustrates the distinction, rarely appreciated, between an error of

judgment and an error of conduct. Upon arrival, he was at once deprived

of his command, a step of unquestionable justice, but which could not

help Jervis. "We were all eyes, looking westward from the mountain

tops," wrote Collingwood, then a captain in the fleet, "but we looked in

vain. The Spanish fleet, nearly double our number, was cruising almost

in view, and our reconnoitring frigates sometimes got among them, while

we expected them hourly to be joined by the French fleet." "I cannot

describe to your lordship," wrote Jervis himself, "the disappointment my

ambition and zeal to serve my country have suffered by this diminution

of my force; for had Admiral Mann sailed from Gibraltar on the 10th of

October, the day he received my orders, and fulfilled them, I have every

reason to believe the Spanish fleet would have been cut to pieces. The

extreme disorder and confusion they were observed to be in, by the

judicious officers who fell in with them, leave no doubt upon my mind

that a fleet so trained and generally well commanded as this is would

have made its way through them in every direction."

Nelson shared this opinion, the accuracy of which was soon to be tested

and proved. "They at home," wrote he to his wife, "do not know what this

fleet is capable of performing; anything and everything. The fleets of

England are equal to meet the world in arms; and of all the fleets I

ever saw, I never beheld one, in point of officers and men, equal to Sir

John Jervis's, who is a commander-in-chief able to lead them to glory."

To a friend he wrote: "Mann is ordered to come up; we shall then be

twenty-two sail-of-the-line such as England hardly ever produced,

commanded by an admiral who will not fail to look the enemy in the face,

be their force what it may. I suppose it will not be more than

thirty-four of-the-line." "The admiral is firm as a rock," wrote at the

same moment the British viceroy of Corsica. Through all doubts and

uncertainties he held on steadily, refusing to leave the rendezvous till

dire necessity forced him, lest Mann, arriving, should be exposed alone

and lost. At last, with starvation staring him in the face if delaying

longer, he sailed for Gibraltar, three men living on the rations of one

during the passage down.

Mann's defection had reduced the fleet from twenty-two vessels to

fifteen. A series of single accidents still further diminished it. In a

violent gale at Gibraltar three ships-of-the-line drove from their

anchors. One, the _Courageux_, stretching over toward the Barbary coast,

ran ashore there and was totally wrecked, nearly all her crew perishing.

Her captain, a singularly capable seaman named Hallowell, was out of her

upon a courtmartial, and it was thought she would not have been lost had

he been on board. Another, the _Gibraltar_, struck so heavily on a reef

that she had to be sent to England. Upon being docked, a large piece of

rock was found to have penetrated the bottom and stuck fast in the hole.

Had it worked out, the ship would have foundered. The third vessel, the

_Zealous_, was less badly hurt, but she had to be left behind in

Gibraltar when Jervis, by orders from home, took his fleet to Lisbon.

There, in entering the Tagus, a fourth ship was lost on a shoal, so

that but eleven remained out of twenty-two. Despite these trials of his

constancy, the old man's temper still continued "steady as a rock."

"Whether you send me a reinforcement or not," he wrote to the Admiralty,

"I shall sleep perfectly sound,--not in the Tagus, but at sea; for as

soon as the _St. George_ has shifted her topmast, the _Captain_ her

bowsprit, and the _Blenheim_ repaired her mainmast, I will go out."

"Inactivity in the Tagus," he wrote again, "will make cowards of us

all." This last expression summed up much of his naval philosophy. Keep

men at sea, he used to say, and they cannot help being seamen, though

attention will be needed to assure exercise at the guns. And it may be

believed he would thus contemn the arguments which supported Howe's idea

of preserving the ships by retaining them in port. Keep them at sea, he

would doubtless have replied, and they will learn to take care of

themselves.

In quitting the river another vessel took the ground, and had to be left

behind. This, however, was the last of the admiral's trials for that

time. A few days later, on the 6th of February, 1797, there joined him a

body of five ships-of-the line, detached from England as soon as the

government had been freed from the fear of the invasion of Ireland,

which the French had attempted on a large scale in December. On the

13th, Nelson, a host in himself, returned from an adventurous mission

up the Mediterranean. The next day, February 14th, Jervis with his

fifteen ships met a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven some thirty miles from

Cape St. Vincent, which has given its name to the battle.

The Spaniards were running for Cadiz, to the east-southeast,--say,

across the page from left to right, inclining a little downward,--while

Jervis's fleet was approaching nearly at right angles from the north, or

top of the page. It was in two close, compact columns, of seven and

eight ships respectively. The Spaniards, on the contrary, were in

disorder and dispersed. Six of their ships were far ahead of the others,

an interval of nearly eight miles separating the two groups. The

weather, which was foggy, cleared gradually. Jervis was walking back and

forth on the poop with Hallowell, lately captain of the wrecked

_Courageux_, and he was heard to say, "A victory is very essential to

England at this moment." As ship after ship of the enemy loomed up

through the haze, successive reports were made to him. "There are eight

sail-of-the-line, Sir John." "There are twenty sail-of-the-line, Sir

John." "There are twenty-five of-the-line, Sir John." Finally, when the

full tale of twenty-seven was made out, the captain of the fleet

remarked on the greatness of the odds. "Enough of that, sir," retorted

the admiral, intent on that victory which was so essential to England;

"if there are fifty sail, I will go through them." This reply so

delighted Hallowell, an eccentric man, who a year later gave Nelson the

coffin made from the mainmast of the _Orient_, that he patted his august

superior on the back. "That's right, Sir John," said he, "and, by G----,

we'll give them a d----d good licking!"

When the weather finally cleared, toward 10 A.M., the British were near

to the enemy and heading direct for the gap, which the Spaniards, too

late, were trying to close. Almost at the moment of meeting, Jervis

formed his two columns into one--the order of battle--"with the utmost

celerity;" thus doubling the length of the line interposed between the

two divisions of the enemy. Soon opened the guns of the leading ship,

the _Culloden_, Captain Troubridge; the reports following one another in

regular succession, as though firing a salute by watch. The _Culloden's_

course led so direct upon a Spanish three-decker, that the first

lieutenant reported a collision imminent. "Can't help it, Griffiths,"

replied Troubridge; "hardest fend off." But the Spaniard, in confusion,

put his helm up and went clear. By this time the Spanish division on the

right, or west, of the British had changed its course and was steering

north, parallel but opposite to its foes. As the _Culloden_ went

through, the admiral signalled her to put about and follow it.

Troubridge, fully expecting this order, obeyed at once; and Jervis's

signal was scarce unfurled when, by the flapping of the _Culloden's_

sails, he saw it was receiving execution. "Look at Troubridge!" he

shouted. "Doesn't he handle his ship as though the eyes of all England

were on him? I would to God they were, that she might know him as I know

him!" But here a graver matter drew the admiral's care. The Spanish

division from the left, steering across his path of advance, approached,

purposing in appearance to break through the line. The _Victory_

stopped, or, as seamen say, hove-to; and as the Spanish admiral came

near within a hundred yards, her broadside rang out, sweeping through

the crowded decks and lofty spars a storm of shot, to which, in the

relative positions, the foe could not reply. Staggered and crippled he

went about, and the _Victory_ stood on.

Meanwhile, the ships which Troubridge and his followers were pursuing

drew toward the tail of the British column, and as they did so made a

movement to pass round it, and so join their friends who had just been

so severely handled in making the attempt to pass through. But Nelson

was in this part of the order, there being but two ships behind him.

Now, as far as signals went, he should continue on, and, like the

others, follow in due succession behind the _Culloden_. He saw that if

this were done the Spaniards would effect their junction, so he

instantly turned his ship toward the rear, out of her place, and threw

her alone across the enemy's advance. It is said that the Captain of the

Fleet drew Jervis's attention to this breach of discipline. "Ay,"

replied the old seaman, "and if ever you offend in the same way, I

promise you my forgiveness beforehand." For a while Nelson took the

brunt of the hostile fire from half a dozen ships, but not for long.

Soon Troubridge, his dearest friend, came up with a couple of others;

and Collingwood, the close associate of early days, who had the rear

ship, was signalled to imitate Nelson's act. In doing this, he silenced

the fire of two enemies; but, wrote Nelson, "disdaining the parade of

taking possession of beaten ships, Captain Collingwood most gallantly

pushed on to save his old friend and messmate, who appeared to be in a

critical state, being then fired upon by three first-rates, and the _San

Nicolas_, eighty." To get between Nelson's ship and the _San Nicolas_,

Collingwood had to steer close, passing within ten feet of the latter;

so that, to use his own expression, "though we did not touch sides, you

could not put a bodkin between us." His fire drove the _San Nicolas_

upon one of the first-rates, the _San Josef_; and when, continuing on to

seek other unbeaten foes, he left the field again clear for Nelson, the

latter, by a movement of the helm, grappled the _San Nicolas_.

Incredible as it may appear, the crew of this one British seventy-four

carried, sword in hand, both the enemy's ships, though of far superior

force. "Extravagant as the story may seem," wrote Nelson, "on the

quarter-deck of a Spanish first-rate I received the swords of the

vanquished Spaniards, which, as I received, I gave to William Fearney,

one of my bargemen, who placed them with the greatest _sang-froid_ under

his arm."

Four Spanish ships, two of them of the largest size, were the trophies

of this victory; but its moral effect in demonstrating the relative

values of the two navies, and the confidence England could put in men

like Jervis, Nelson, and the leading captains, was far greater. The

spirit of the nation, depressed by a long series of reverses, revived

like a giant refreshed with wine. Jervis had spoken truth when he said a

victory was essential to England at that time. The gratitude of the

state was shown in the profusion of rewards showered upon the victors.

Promotions and honors were liberally distributed. The Government had

already purposed to recognize Jervis's previous services by raising him

to the lower ranks of the peerage; but this timely triumph procured him

at one step a higher elevation. He was created Earl of St. Vincent, with

a pension of three thousand pounds per annum.

The tactical decisions made by Jervis on this momentous occasion were

correct as far as they went; but, except the initial determination to

attack the larger body of the enemy, because to windward, there is no

evidence of tactical originality in him, no innovation comparable to

Howe's manoeuvres on May 28 and 29,--and there was undoubted oversight

in not providing by signal against that move of the weather Spanish

division which it became Nelson's opportunity and glory to counteract.

It is also possible that the signal to tack in succession, a wholly

routine proceeding, might have been made earlier to advantage; but the

writer does not think that the body of the fleet should then have tacked

together, as some criticism would have it. Until the British van

approached on the new tack, the broadsides of the centre were better

ranged on the original line to counteract the efforts, actually made, by

the lee Spanish division to break through. As regards the decision not

to follow the victory further, which has been censured in the instances

of Rodney and Howe, the conditions here differed in much. The disparity

of numbers was very great; if many of the enemy had suffered greatly,

many also had not suffered at all; they were now reunited; above all

Jervis's strategic and political insight--far superior to his tactical

equipment--had rightly read the situation when he said that what England

needed was a victory,--moral effect. The victory was there, undeniable

and brilliant, it was better not risked.

The rest of the Spaniards, many of them badly crippled, took refuge in

Cadiz, and there Jervis, after repairing damages, held them blockaded

for two years, from April, 1797, to May, 1799. For the greater part of

this time the operation was conducted by anchoring the British fleet, a

resource which the character of the ground permitted, and which, though

not everywhere possible, St. Vincent declared the only way of assuring

the desired end of holding a position in all weathers. During this

period was rendered the other most signal service done by him to the

state, in suppressing the mutinous action of the seamen, which there, as

everywhere else in the British navy at that time, sought to overthrow

the authority of the officers.

The cause of the mutinies of 1797 is not here in question. Suffice it to

say that, in their origin, they alleged certain tangible material

grievances which were clearly stated, and, being undeniable, were

redressed. The men returned to their duty; but, like a horse that has

once taken the bit between his teeth, the restive feeling remained,

fermenting in a lot of vicious material which the exigencies of the day

had forced the navy to accept. Coinciding in time with the risings in

Ireland, 1796-1798, there arose between the two movements a certain

sympathy, which was fostered by the many Irish in the fleets, where

agents were in communication with the leaders of the United Irishmen on

shore.

In the Channel and the North Sea, the seamen took the ships, with few

exceptions, out of the hands of their officers. In the former, they

dictated their terms; in the latter, after a month of awful national

suspense, they failed: the difference being that in the one case the

demands, being reasonable, carried conviction, while in the other,

becoming extravagant, the Government's resistance was supported by

public opinion. It remained to be seen how the crisis would be met in a

fleet so far from home that the issue must depend upon the firmness and

judgment of a man of adamant. It was no more than prudent to expect that

the attempt would be made there also; and the watchfulness of the

superior officers of the fleet soon obtained certain information of its

approach, though as yet without proof adequate to the arrest of

individuals. The policy of the admiral, broadly stated, was that of

isolating ship from ship--_divide et impera_--to prevent concerted

action; a measure effected to all practical purpose by his unremitting

vigilance, and by the general devotion to his policy among his leading

officers. On the other hand, evidence was not wanting that in the ships

long under his orders his own character was now fairly understood, and

obtained for him a backing among the seamen themselves, without which

his severity alone might have failed.

The first overt sign of trouble was the appearance of letters addressed

to the leading petty officers of the different ships of the

Mediterranean fleet. These were detected by a captain, who held on to

them, and sent to St. Vincent to ask if they should be delivered.

Careful to betray no sign of anxiety, the admiral's reply was a general

signal for a lieutenant from each ship to come to him; and by them word

was sent that all letters should be delivered as addressed, unopened.

"Should any disturbance arise," he added, "the commander-in-chief will

know how to repress it."

Disturbance soon did arise, and it is significant to note that it

appeared in a ship which, by taking the ground when leaving Lisbon, had

not shared in the Battle of St. Vincent. In July, 1797, two seamen of

the _St. George_ had been condemned to death for an infamous crime.

Their shipmates presented a petition, framed in somewhat peremptory

terms, for their liberation, on the ground that execution for such an

offence would bring disgrace upon all. The admiral refusing to pardon,

the occasion was seized to bring mutiny to a head. A plot to take

possession of the ship was formed, but was betrayed to the captain. The

outburst began with a tumultuous assembling of the crew, evidently,

however, mistrustful of their cause. After vainly trying to restore

order, the captain and first lieutenant rushed among them, each

collaring a ringleader. The rest fell back, weakened, as men of

Anglo-Saxon traditions are apt to be, by the sense of law-breaking. The

culprits were secured, and at once taken to the flag-ship. A

courtmartial was ordered for the next day, Saturday; and as the

prisoners were being taken to the court, St. Vincent, with a hard

bluntness of speech which characterized him,--a survival of the frank

brutality of the past century,--said, "My friends, I hope you are

innocent, but if you are guilty make your peace with God; for, if you

are condemned, and there is daylight to hang you, you will die this

day."

They were condemned; but the trial ended late, and the president of the

court told them they should have Sunday to prepare. "Sir," said the

earl, "when you passed sentence, your duty was done; you had no right to

say that execution should be delayed;" and he fixed it for eight the

next morning. One of the junior admirals saw fit to address him a

remonstrance upon what he termed a desecration of the Sabbath. Nelson,

on the contrary, approved. "Had it been Christmas instead of Sunday,"

wrote he, "I would have hanged them. Who can tell what mischief would

have been brewed over a Sunday's grog?" Contrary to previous custom,

their own shipmates, the partners and followers in their crime, were

compelled to hang them, manning the rope by which the condemned were

swayed to the yardarm. The admiral, careful to produce impression,

ordered that all the ships should hold divine service immediately upon

the execution. Accordingly, when the bell struck eight, the fatal gun

was fired, the bodies swung with a jerk aloft, the church flags were

hoisted throughout the fleet, and all went to prayers. Ere yet the

ceremony was over, the Spanish gunboats came out from Cadiz and opened

fire; but St. Vincent would not mar the solemnity of the occasion by

shortening the service. Gravely it was carried to its end; but when the

flags came down, all boats were ordered manned. The seamen, with nerves

tense from the morning's excitement, gladly hurried into action, and the

enemy were forced back into port.

One such incident was far from ending the ordeal through which the

admiral had to pass, and which was prolonged throughout the period of

the Cadiz blockade. In May, 1798, when Nelson was sent into the

Mediterranean to win the Battle of the Nile, the detachment committed to

him was replaced by a dozen ships-of-the-line from the Channel, seething

with the mutinous temper which at home had been humored rather than

scotched. Immediately on their joining, request was made for a Court

Martial on some men of the _Marlborough_, on board which two violent

mutinies had occurred,--one on the passage out. St. Vincent, having

known beforehand that this ship had been pre-eminent for

insubordination, had ordered her anchored in the centre of the fleet,

between the two lines in which it was ranged; and the Court met without

delay. The remainder of the incident is quoted substantially from one of

St. Vincent's biographers, for it illustrates most forcibly the

sternness of his action, as well when dealing with weakness in officers

as with mutiny in crews. The written order to the commander of the

division of launches appears among the earl's papers, as does also a

similar one in the case of a mutiny on board the _Defence_ some months

earlier. The ulterior object of parading these boats was kept profoundly

secret. They appeared to be only part of the pageantry, of the solemn

ceremonial, with which the wisdom of the great commander-in-chief

providently sought to invest all exhibitions of authority, in order to

deepen impression.

The object of the last mutiny on board the _Marlborough_ had been to

protect the life of a seaman forfeited by a capital crime. No sooner was

one sentenced to die than the commander-in-chief ordered him to be

executed on the following morning, "and by the crew of the _Marlborough_

alone, no part of the boats' crews from the other ships, as had been

used on similar occasions, to assist in the punishment,--his lordship's

invariable order on the execution of mutineers. On the receipt of the

necessary commands for this execution, Captain Ellison of the

_Marlborough_ waited upon the commander-in-chief, and reminding his

lordship that a determination that their shipmates should not suffer

capital punishment had been the very cause of the ship's company's

mutiny, expressed his conviction that the _Marlborough's_ crew would

never permit the man to be hanged on board that ship.

"Receiving the captain on the _Ville de Paris's_ quarter-deck, before

the officers and ship's company hearkening in breathless silence to

what passed, and standing with his hat in his hand over his head, as

was his lordship's invariable custom during the whole time that any

person, whatever were his rank, even a common seaman, addressed him on

service, Lord St. Vincent listened very attentively till the captain

ceased to speak; and then after a pause replied,--

"'Do you mean to tell me, Captain Ellison, that you cannot _command_ his

Majesty's ship, the _Marlborough_? for if that is the case, sir, I will

immediately send on board an officer who can.'

"The captain then requested that, at all events, the boats' crews from

the rest of the fleet might, as always had been customary in the

service, on executions, attend at this also, to haul the man up; for he

really did not expect the _Marlborough's_ would do it.

"Lord St. Vincent sternly answered: 'Captain Ellison, you are an old

officer, sir, have served long, suffered severely in the service, and

have lost an arm in action, and I should be very sorry that any

advantage should be now taken of your advanced years. That man shall be

hanged, at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, _and by his own ship's

company_: for not a hand from any other ship in the fleet shall touch

the rope. You will now return on board, sir; and, lest you should not

prove able to command your ship, an officer will be at hand who can.'

"Without another word Captain Ellison instantly retired. After he had

reached his ship, he received orders to cause her guns to be housed and

secured, and that at daybreak in the morning her ports should be

lowered. A general order was then issued to the fleet for all launches

to rendezvous under the _Prince_ at seven o'clock on the following

morning, armed with carronades and twelve rounds of ammunition for

service; each launch to be commanded by a lieutenant, having an expert

and trusty gunner's-mate and four quarter gunners, exclusive of the

launch's crew. The whole were to be under the command of Captain

Campbell, of the _Blenheim_, to whom, on presenting to him the written

orders under which he was to act, Lord St. Vincent further said, 'he was

to attend the execution, and if any symptoms of mutiny appeared in the

_Marlborough_, any attempt to open her ports, or any resistance to the

hanging of the prisoner, he was to proceed close touching the ship, and

to fire into her, and to continue to fire until all mutiny or resistance

should cease; and that, should it become absolutely necessary, he should

even sink the ship in face of the fleet.'

"Accordingly, at seven the next morning, all the launches, thus armed,

proceeded, from the _Prince_ to the _Blenheim_, and thence, Captain

Campbell having assumed the command, to the _Marlborough_.

"Having lain on his oars a short time alongside, the captain then formed

his force in a line athwart her bows, at rather less than pistol shot

distance off, and then he ordered the tompions to be taken out of the

carronades, and to load.

"At half-past seven, the hands throughout the fleet having been turned

up to witness punishment, the eyes of all bent upon a powerfully armed

boat as it quitted the flag-ship; every one knowing that there went the

provost-marshal conducting his prisoner to the _Marlborough_ for

execution. The crisis was come; now was to be seen whether the

_Marlborough's_ crew would hang one of their own men.

"The ship being in the centre between the two lines of the fleet, the

boat was soon alongside, and the man was speedily placed on the cathead

and haltered. A few awful minutes of universal silence followed, which

was at last broken by the watch bells of the fleet striking eight

o'clock. Instantly the flag-ship's gun fired, and at the sound the man

was lifted well off; but then, and visibly to all, he dropped back

again; and the sensation throughout the fleet was intense. For, at this

dreadful moment, when the eyes of every man in every ship was straining

upon this execution, as the decisive struggle between authority and

mutiny, as if it were destined that the whole fleet should see the

hesitating unwillingness of the _Marlborough's_ crew to hang their

rebel, and the efficacy of the means taken to enforce obedience, by an

accident on board the ship the men at the yard-rope unintentionally let

it slip, and the turn of the balance seemed calamitously lost; but then

they hauled him up to the yard arm with a run. The law was satisfied,

and, said Lord St. Vincent at the moment, perhaps one of the greatest of

his life, 'Discipline is preserved, sir!'"

Again a year later, in May, 1799, when twenty-five French

ships-of-the-line broke through the wretchedly inefficient guard at that

time kept before Brest, and entered the Mediterranean, a reinforcement

of over a dozen was sent from the Channel to Lord St. Vincent, who was

found then in Port Mahon, Minorca. Sir Edward Pellew, captain of one of

the new-comers, asked a Court-Martial upon a mutiny that had occurred

just before leaving the home port. St. Vincent at first demurred,

startled, according to Pellew's biographer, by the extent of the plot

then revealed, and thinking it politic to suppress the facts; but it is

alleged with equal probability that he was indignant at being

continually called upon to remedy evils due to the general indiscipline

of the Channel Fleet. "What do they mean by invariably sending the

mutinous ships to me? Do they think that I will be hangman to the

fleet?" Both versions are likely enough to be correct. There is a limit

to all human endurance, and the earl was now broken in health; he was

sixty-four, had borne his load for three years, and was on the point of

resigning his command to Lord Keith. The Court, however, was ordered,

and three men were sentenced to be hanged. Pellew then interceded for

one, on the ground of previous good character. "No," replied St.

Vincent. "Those who have suffered hitherto have been so worthless before

that their fate was of little use as an example. I shall now convince

the seamen that no character, however good, shall save a man who is

guilty of mutiny."

But St. Vincent was not content with mere repression. Outwardly, and

indeed inwardly, unshaken, he yet unwearyingly so ordered the fleet as

to avoid occasions of outbreak. With the imposing moral control exerted

by his unflinching steadiness, little trouble was to be apprehended from

single ships; ignorant of what might be hoped from sympathizers

elsewhere, but sure of the extreme penalty in case of failure, the

movements lacked cohesion and were easily nipped. Concerted action only

was to be feared, and careful measures were taken to remove

opportunities. Captains were forbidden to entertain one another at

dinner,--the reason, necessarily unavowed, being that the boats from

various ships thus assembling gave facilities for transmitting messages

and forming plans; and when ships arrived from England they underwent a

moral quarantine, no intercourse with them being permitted until

sanctioned by the admiral. When the captain reported to him, his boat,

while waiting, was shoved off out of earshot. It is said that on one

occasion a seaman in such a boat managed to call to one looking out of

a port of the flag-ship, "I say, there, what have you fellows been doing

out here, while we have been fighting for your beef and pork?" To which

the other replied, "You'd best say nothing at all about that out here,

for if old Jarvie hears ye he'll have ye dingle-dangle at the yardarm at

eight o'clock to-morrow morning."

The severe strain of this prolonged watchfulness told on even his iron

hardihood, and it would almost appear that some of the rough practical

jokes told of this period must represent reaction from the tension under

which he necessarily was through the grave anxieties pressing upon him.

Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in

horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause.

Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the

Sunday celebration of Divine Service. Upon its conclusion, he framed and

published a new signal, for "all chaplains," the employment of which,

however, was postponed to an occasion suited to his lordship's fun. "A

few days after it blew great guns from west-southwest, which is directly

into the Bay of Cadiz. The inshore squadron lay six miles from the

flag-ship, directly to leeward, and up went the signal for all

chaplains. It was a hard pull for the rowers, and no luxury for the

sitters. When they reached the quarter-deck of the _Ville de Paris_,

literally drenched with salt-water, the admiral presented them to

'Bishop Morgan,' as he called the chaplain of the flag-ship, and desired

that they would go down into the ward-room and hold a conclave." One who

has had a pull of that kind, as most officers have in their day, can

understand that the humor was less appreciable to the victims than to

the author.

"He sometimes amused himself by paying a visit to the quarter-deck at

what most people would deem very unseasonable hours. Coming up one

morning at half-past two, in the middle watch, he sent for Colonel

Flight, the commanding officer of marines. Up came the colonel, armed at

all points, supposing that some enterprise was in hand. 'I have sent for

you,' said the Chief, in the quiet and gentlemanly style which he could

always command, 'I have sent for you, Colonel, that you might smell, for

the first time in your life, the delicious odors brought off by the land

wind from the shores of Andalusia. Take a good sniff, and then you may

go and turn in again.'"

"A lieutenant one day came on board to answer a signal. Lord St. Vincent

thought there was about him too much _embonpoint_ for an officer of that

rank. 'Calder,' said he to the captain of the fleet, 'all the

lieutenants are running to belly; they have been too long at anchor (for

the fleet was still off Cadiz); block up the entering port, except for

admirals and captains, and make them climb over the hammocks.' The

entering port in a three-decked ship being on the middle deck, the

difference between going into that and climbing over the hammocks may be

compared to entering the drawing-room by the balcony window, or mounting

to the parapet and taking the attics by storm. There was also great

inconvenience, and even expense, attending this painful operation, since

in those days all officers wore white knee-breeches, or shorts, as they

were called, and many useful garments which could not readily be

replaced, were torn and spoiled in this attempt at juvenile activity,

and many oaths probably sworn, which but for this needless exertion

would not have been elicited."

A more pleasing, and it may well be believed much more characteristic,

instance of his playfulness has also been transmitted; one illustrative

too of his deep fund of kindliness which was shown in many acts, often

of large pecuniary liberality, and tinged especially with a certain

distinct service coloring, with sympathy for the naval officer and the

naval seaman, which must have gone far to obtain for him the obedience

of the will as well as submission of conduct. He wisely believed in the

value of forms, and was careful to employ them, in this crisis of the

mutinies, to enforce the habit of reverence for the insignia of the

state and the emblems of military authority. Young lieutenants--for

there were _young_ lieutenants in those days--were directed to stand

cap in hand before their superiors, and not merely to touch their hats

in a careless manner. "The discipline of the cabin and ward-room

officers is the discipline of the fleet," said the admiral; and savage,

almost, were the punishments that fell upon officers who disgraced their

cloth. The hoisting of the colors, the symbol of the power of the

nation, from which depended his own and that of all the naval hierarchy,

was made an august and imposing ceremony. The marine guard, of near a

hundred men, was paraded on board every ship-of-the-line. The national

anthem was played, the scarlet-clad guard presented, and all officers

and crews stood bareheaded, as the flag with measured dignity rose

slowly to the staff-head. Lord St. Vincent himself made a point of

attending always, and in full uniform; a detail he did not require of

other officers. Thus the divinity that hedges kings was, by due

observance, associated with those to whom their authority was delegated,

and the very atmosphere the seaman breathed was saturated with

reverence.

The presence of Lord St. Vincent on these occasions, and in full

uniform, gave rise to an amusing skit by one of the lieutenants of the

fleet, attributing the homage exacted, not to the flag, but to the great

man himself; and this, becoming known to the admiral, elicited from him

in turn the exhibition of practical humor to which allusion has just

been made. Parodying the Scriptural story of Nebuchadnezzar's golden

image, the squib began:--

"I. The Earl of St. Vincent, the commander-in-chief, made an Image of

blue and gold, whose height was about five feet seven inches, and the

breadth thereof was about twenty inches" (which we may infer were the

proportions of his lordship). "He set it up every ten o'clock A.M. on

the quarter-deck of the _Ville de Paris_, before Cadiz."

Passing from hand to hand, it can be understood that this effusion,

which was characterized throughout by a certain sprightliness, gave more

amusement to men familiar with the local surroundings, and welcoming any

trifle of fun in the dulness of a blockade, than it does to us. At last

it reached the admiral, who knew the author well. Sending for him on

some pretext, an hour before the time fixed for a formal dinner to the

captains of the fleet, he detained him until the meal was served, and

then asked him to share it. All passed off quietly until the cloth was

removed, and then the host asked aloud, "What shall be done to the man

whom the commander-in-chief delights to honour?" "Promote him," said one

of the company. "Not so," replied St. Vincent, "but set him on high

among the people. So, Cumby," addressing the lieutenant, "do you sit

there,"--on a chair previously arranged at some height above the

deck,--"and read this paper to the captains assembled." Mystified, but

not yet guessing what was before him, Cumby took his seat, and, opening

the paper, saw his own parody. His imploring looks were lost upon the

admiral, who sat with his stern quarter-deck gravity unshaken, while the

abashed lieutenant, amid the suppressed mirth of his audience, stumbled

through his task, until the words were reached, "Then the Earl of St.

Vincent was full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against

the poor Captain of the Main-Top," who had not taken off his hat before

the Image of blue and gold. Here a roar of laughter from the head of the

table unloosed all tongues, and Cumby's penance ended in a burst of

general merriment. "Lieutenant Cumby," said the admiral, when quiet was

restored, "you have been found guilty of parodying Holy Writ to bring

your commander-in-chief into disrespect; and the sentence is that you

proceed to England at once on three months' leave of absence, and upon

your return report to me to take dinner here again."

Compelled by general break-down of health to seek rest at home, St.

Vincent returned to England in August, 1799. He was not left long in

repose. The condition of the Channel Fleet as regards discipline has

already appeared, and the very recent incident of the escape of the

great French fleet from Brest, coupled with the equally humiliating and

even more threatening experience of the same character in 1796, when the

invasion of Ireland was attempted,--both which occurred under the same

British commander-in-chief,--showed the urgent necessity of placing in

control the only man of suitable rank, whose complete adequacy to such a

post had been demonstrated. St. Vincent accordingly hoisted his flag in

April, 1800.

In the effort to restore discipline, he here encountered not only

opposition, intensified by the greater desire for shore privileges that

always attends a home station and the proximity of wives and children,

but something very like an attempt at combination against his orders--a

very grave military offence--on the part of the captains. All this he

trampled down with severity amounting to ruthlessness. The insubordinate

toast--"May the discipline of the Mediterranean never be introduced into

the Channel Fleet"--was met face to face by republishing every order and

restriction upon which the discipline of the Mediterranean had rested.

In the more distinctly military part of his task, the closing of the

port of Brest to evasions by the enemy, such as those just mentioned, he

achieved a noteworthy success. Modelling his scheme upon that of Hawke,

forty years before, he gave to it a development, a solidity, and an

extension which his distinguished forerunner had not been able to

impart. Hawke had not the advantage, which St. Vincent had, of following

a period of inefficiency, the remembrance of which compelled the

Admiralty vigorously to support all measures of the commander-in-chief,

if they desired to replace the interminable uncertainties and anxieties

of the last administration of the fleet by a sense of security, and

consequent popular content.

St. Vincent's institution and maintenance of the Brest blockade must be

regarded under two principal heads. There is, first, the usefulness of

the blockade as an instrument to the general ends of the current war,

which is the strategic point of view, involving a conception permanent

in character; and there are again the local dispositions, arising from

the local conditions, that may rightly be styled tactical, and vary from

port to port thus watched. The former, the strategic, was more directly

in line with his natural gifts; and in the possession which the idea

took of him is to be found the germ of the system that thenceforward

began to throttle the power of the French Revolution, whether under the

Republic or the Empire. The essence of the scheme was to cut loose from

the beach, and keep to the sea; ever watchful, with the same

watchfulness that had not only crushed mutiny, but by diligent care

forestalled occasions of revolt. "Our great reliance," he said,--not

directly in reference to the blockade, but to the general thought of

which the blockade, as instituted by him, was the most illustrious

exemplification,--"is on the vigilance and activity of our cruisers at

sea, any reduction in the number of which, by applying them to guard our

ports, inlets, and beaches, would in my judgment tend to our

destruction." Amplified as the idea was by him, when head of the

Admiralty, to cover not only Brest but all ports where hostile divisions

lay, it became a strategic plan of wide sweep, which crushed the

vitality of the hostile navies, isolated France from all support by

commerce, and fatally sapped her strength. To St. Vincent, more than to

any one man, is due the effective enforcement and maintenance of this

system; and in this sense, as practically the originator of a decisive

method, he is fairly and fully entitled to be considered the organizer

of ultimate victory.

The local dispositions before Brest will not here be analyzed.[14]

Suffice it to say that, as revealed in Jervis's correspondence, they

show that equipment of general professional knowledge, that careful

study of conditions,--of what corresponds to "the ground" of a shore

battle-field,--and the thoughtful prevision of possibilities, which

constitute so far the skilful tactician. The defence and the attack of

seaports, embracing as they do both occupation of permanent positions

and the action of mobile bodies, are tactical questions; differing much,

yet not radically, from field operations, where positions are taken

incidentally, but where movement of armed men is the principal factor.

In the one sense St. Vincent displayed a high degree of aptitude for

ordered permanent dispositions, which is the side of tactics most akin

to strategy. On the more distinctively tactical side, in the movements

of a fleet in action, he had little opportunity. As far as shown by his

one battle, Cape St. Vincent, it would not appear that either by nature

or cultivation he possessed to any great extent the keen insight and

quick appreciation that constitute high tactical ability.

Earl St. Vincent rendered three great services to England. The first was

the forming and disciplining the Mediterranean fleet into the perfection

that has been mentioned. Into it, thus organized, he breathed a spirit

which, taking its rise from the stern commander himself, rested upon a

conviction of power, amply justified in the sequel by Cape St. Vincent

and the Nile, its two greatest achievements. The second was the winning

of the Battle of St. Vincent at a most critical political moment. The

third was the suppression of mutiny in 1797 and 1798. But, in estimating

the man, these great works are not to be considered as isolated from his

past and his future. They were the outcome and fruitage of a character

naturally strong, developed through long years of patient sustained

devotion to the ideals of discipline and professional tone, which in

them received realization. Faithful in the least, Jervis, when the time

came, was found faithful also in the greatest. Nor was the future

confined to his own personal career. Though he must yield to Nelson the

rare palm of genius, which he himself cannot claim, yet was the glory

of Nelson, from the Nile to Trafalgar, the fair flower that could only

have bloomed upon the rugged stalk of Jervis's navy. Upon him,

therefore, Nelson showered expressions of esteem and reverence,

amounting at times almost to tenderness, in his early and better days.

In later years their mutual regard suffered an estrangement which,

whatever its origin, appears as a matter of feeling to have been chiefly

on the part of the younger man, whose temper, under the malign influence

of an unworthy passion, became increasingly imbittered, at strife within

itself and at variance with others. The affectionate admiration of St.

Vincent for his brilliant successor seems to have remained proof against

external differences.

It was poetic justice, then, that allotted to St. Vincent the

arrangement of the responsible expedition which, in 1798, led to the

celebrated Battle of the Nile; in its lustre and thorough workmanship

the gem of all naval exploits. To him it fell to choose for its command

his brilliant younger brother, and to winnow for him the flower of his

fleet, to form what Nelson after the victory called "his band of

brothers." "The Battle of the Nile," said the veteran admiral, Lord

Howe, "stands singular in this, that every captain distinguished

himself." The achievement of the battle was Nelson's own, and Nelson's

only; but it was fought on St. Vincent's station, by a detachment from

St. Vincent's fleet. He it was who composed the force, and chose for

its leader the youngest flag-officer in his command. Bitter reclamations

were made by the admirals senior to Nelson, but St. Vincent had one

simple sufficient reply,--"Those who are responsible for measures must

have the choice of the men to execute them."

When St. Vincent, in 1799, quitted the Mediterranean, he had yet nearly

a quarter of a century to live. His later years were distinguished by

important services, but they embody the same spirit and exemplify the

same methods that marked his Mediterranean command, which was the

culminating period of his career. In 1801, when Pitt's long term of

office came to an end, he became First Lord of the Admiralty,--the head

of naval affairs for the United Kingdom,--and so continued during the

Addington administration, till 1804. In 1806, at the age of seventy-two,

he was again for a short time called to command the Channel fleet; but

in 1807 he retired from active service, and the square flag that had so

long flown with honor was hauled down forever.

The rest of his life was spent chiefly at his country-seat, Rochetts, in

Essex, sixteen miles from London. Having a handsome income, though not

wealthy, he entertained freely; and his retreat was cheered by frequent

visits from his old naval subordinates and political friends. Generous

in the use of money, and without children for whom to save, the

neighborhood learned to love him as a benefactor. In cases of necessity,

his liberality rose to profusion, and he carried into the management of

his estate a carelessness he never showed in administering a fleet. It

is told that he once undertook to raise a sum by mortgage, in entire

forgetfulness of a much larger amount in bank. Far into old age he

retained the active habits of his prime. To say that he rose at four,

asserts a biographer, would be to understate the case; he was frequently

in the fields at half-past two in the early summer dawn of

England,--always before his laborers,--and he was not pleased if his

male guests did not appear by six. To ladies he was more tolerant. With

mind unclouded and unweakened to the last, he retained his interest in

public affairs and in the navy, contributing to the conversation which

animated his home the judgment of an acute intellect, though one deeply

tinged by prejudices inseparable from so strong a character. Thus

honored and solaced by the companionship of his friends, he awaited in

calm dignity the summons, which came on the 13th of March, 1823. He was

two months over eighty-eight when he passed away, the senior admiral of

Great Britain.